Archive for the ‘New York State Museum’ tag

While seeing the Hungerford Rocket Car was the highlight of my recent visit to the New York State Museum, the rest of the museum offered enough exhibits and displays to capture my interest for several hours. It helped, of course, that I could ogle a few other vehicles while there.

Jim O’Clair already told us a few years back that Engine #6, which responded to the World Trade Center, formed the nucleus of the September 11 exhibit at the museum, but he neglected to inform us that right next door to that exhibit was a collection of several fire trucks of various makes and years.

For the New York City section of the museum, they had a Yellow cab – that’s Yellow as in the taxi manufacturer that GMC bought in 1925. Also encountered a Franklin (noteworthy for being manufactured in Syracuse) as well as a 1946 or 1947 Eliason Motor Toboggan Model D snowmobile, built by the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company using a 45-cu.in. Indian motorcycle V-twin engine.

1942 American-LaFrance, served 40 years at the U.S. Army Arsenal at Watervliet

1953 Ward LaFrance, served 28 years for the Maplewood Fire Department in Albany County

1938 Ahrens-Fox, served in Manhattan, Long Island City and at the Otisville municipal sanitarium

1947 American-LaFrance, served 53 years with the village of Green Island

1926 American-LaFrance water tower, served in Albany

1919 American-LaFrance, served in the City of Buffalo (1919-1938) and at the J.N. Adam Hospital in Perrysburg (1938-1973)

Having not grown up in the area, I was never treated to elementary school field trips to the museum, but Heather was, so I persuaded her that our rainy Saturday afternoon would be best spent perusing the museum with the main goal of bringing back my own shots of the rocket car.

I love the shabbiness of the whole thing. Recall from the SIA article that the body was originally cardboard – only later was the cardboard replaced with aluminum (by Ralph L. Hodge of Cohoes), which seems to have been installed in the haphazard manner befitting this car. The headlights are crooked. The fake nacelles out back are supported with strap metal. The fake tanks on either side are capped with headlamp buckets. Freakin’ awesome.

Engine #6 beneath the rubble of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

What is left of Engine #6 from the World Trade Center disaster is on permanent display at the New York State Museum in Albany. The state museum is one of the largest repositories of September 11 artifacts in the U.S. with many items on display including a portion of the steel skeleton of the World Center and the fire engine, both of which came from the Fresh Kills land fill, where all WTC debris was taken to be processed. A section of the fence from around ground zero is also displayed with some of the missing persons posters and the flowers and gifts that were left attached to it. The exhibit has been open since 2002 and has attracted as many as 70,000 visitors per month. The display is well thought out and tasteful representation of that day and a very sobering place to visit as well.